“Perhaps we had best wait and I’ll explain what I wish to say after we have enjoyed our drive for a little while,” Dan replied wisely.
Therefore he and Sally discussed only casual matters for the next quarter of an hour. But finally, when they had passed under the Arc and were in the Bois, the wooded park on the outskirts of Paris, Dan remarked without further preparation:
“Sally, I want you to promise me to go back to the United States and to your own people at the earliest opportunity. I have been watching you pretty carefully ever since our unexpected encounter a few weeks ago and I never saw a girl more changed than you have been by your work in France. It is true you are looking a little better today, but that is because you are entertained for the time being. When no one is supposed to be paying any attention to you, you appear terribly depressed. As a matter of fact, Sally, you are not the type of girl who should ever have come over to do war work. The fellows have all said that some of the girls had better have stayed at home and made bandages and knit socks.”
At this Sally appeared deeply hurt.
“You are not kind, Dan, even if what you say is in a measure true. Recently it has seemed awfully difficult for me to take the proper interest in the work of organizing the Camp Fire in France, as the other girls are doing. But I think if you ask Aunt Patricia or Tante, they will both tell you that I tried to do my share of the work at our farmhouse on the Aisne. And don’t you think my returning home at once is a question for Tante or for my mother and father to decide?”
Dan Webster was one of the fortunate persons who was rarely troubled by indecision.
In answer to Sally’s question, he shook his head positively.
“No, I don’t. In the first place your mother and father are not here and so are unable to see what a difference there is in you. Tante is one of the most charming persons in the world, but I have never thought her remarkable for good judgment. Besides, Sally, you must not consider that I intend being rude or unkind to you. It is really because I have always been fonder of you than of most girls, that I take the trouble to interfere. I don’t mean that you have not done your best in France and I don’t mean that your work hasn’t been jolly well done, and of course you have always gotten on with fellows and understood them better than most girls. I was thinking more of the effect upon you of what you have seen in France during the war. I have seen enough myself, never to expect to be exactly the same again, but somehow a man does not want a girl he is fond of saddened, especially when she is so young and such a gay little thing as you used to be. I am pretty stupid at trying to say things, Sally, but I wish you to know that Tante and I had a talk about you and she told me to go ahead and see if you would confide in me. She says she has noticed that something has been the matter with you for a long time and your friends have seen it too. But you have never told her or Alice what troubled you and apparently, if there is anything serious the matter, you have only talked to Miss Lord.”
At this instant and for the first time during his long speech Dan hesitated and colored hotly.
He was a splendid looking young fellow nearly six feet high with shining black hair and deep blue eyes. Ordinarily he had a brilliant color, but at present his complexion had not recovered from the long months spent in a German prison.